19 November 2015 12:49 PM

Sunday Morning Live

Some readers may like to see last Sunday's 'Sunday Morning Live', available for a limited time on BBC iplayer, in which I discuss the Paris Atrocities, the campaign for a cultural boycott of Israel , and the fiction of 'addiction'

And tell me how you decide when to trust an expert and when not (bearing in mind the discussion was about the community of climate scientists, but generalises to all scientific disciplines)? Do you, for example, decide that the idea of antiparticles that annihilate when they meet particles is so silly that you'll refuse a PET scan? Or refuse to buy a GPS system because it adjusts for the difference in time at different speeds, because you know that time is time wherever you are? Or...

did some of the contibutors/critics , listen to what the two doctors said ?
They gave some support to PHs position that cannabis can be bad for you , One of them plainly said it , while reasonably disagreeing with PHs personal opinion about addiction . Pay attention at the back .

watched the sunday morning live programme linked to in the article.
interesting , the debate on terrorism seemed subdued , still raw .
The addiction debate , PHs position on this is well known , the brain scans on patients that one of the Doctors displayed were frightening .
The other doctor was also a revelation , no jargon very plain speaking .
His blunt statement to PH that cannabis is dangerous , I forget the exact wording , was unexpected both to Mr Hitchens , I think , who must get a little fed up of being got at over this matter , so refreshing to hear an expert state something with no flannel . I wonder how people will try to rubbish that experts opinion.
The boycott of Israel part , whats new , boycott IS instead .

I watched this yesterday evening. Great discussion on each topic with constructive and well reasoned comments delivered from most of the guests on the show. I also thought it was hosted in an impartial and well balanced manner by the presenter and her colleague. All discussion and debate programmes should maintain this high standard of neutral and balanced presentation. Well done BBC.

Ilanatan,
"Anti-Semitism" and "anti-Zionist" are the names of two distinct, though overlapping, groups. Anti-Semites try hard to blur the two, because they think Israel's behaviour will affect opinions of Jews. Zionists try hard also, because they think the accusation of anti-Semitism an argument-stopper which persuades many to avoid criticising Israel at all, and helps undermine the credibility and probity of those who still dare. In both instances, the usage is dishonest. It is a usage you come close to appearing to deploy in your comment.

The discussion on boycotting Israel was a huge example of bias and a missed opportunity. No discussion on whether it is right to boycott Israel, just whether boycotts per se are effective. Two people who are boycotting Israel and are allowed to make statements such as "Israel is ethnically cleansing Jerusalem", one person who was apparently somewhat against the boycott but was hardly allowed to state why - "No, keep to the point: are boycotts effective?" I oppose the boycott, not because boycotts may be ineffective (as a student I supported the anti-apartheid boycott), nor because the boycotters seem to be singling out Israel (your point, Peter). I oppose the boycott because it fuels the feeling among most Israeli Jews that the world, particularly Europe, is irredeemably anti-semitic and makes them more unwilling to compromise. It also encourages the Palestinians to think they can get everything they want through internatonal pressure without making any compromises. Yes, boycotters get a response but the response is a mixture of hurt and defiance, absolutely not a jot of "Maybe they have a point", because really we don't know what their point is except to harm Israel -complete withdrawal to 1967 lines? Making Israel indefensible? Making the territories Judenrein? Israel Jews see all these things as tantamount to national suicide.

Usama Hasan believes that 'the free movement of peoples' as applying to workers within the European Community, is also in turn 'a universal human right' (Sunday Morning Live - 38 mins).

Perhaps addiction can be likened to a habit. Tying our shoelaces is a habit. One that doesn't alter our mood or give us a hangover. It possibly alters our brain in the same way as taxi drivers who do the knowledge alter their brains. Habits can be hard to 'break' and sometimes easy to 'let go of' if something else captures our world. Wanting to be a better person if you meet someone you really like, for example. As in the movie, 'As Good As it Gets'.

Think of it like this. People with strokes have the wiring of their brains completely burnt away. The part of their brain that controls the left/right side of their body doesn't exist anymore. Therefore they can't move their leg, or arm, or speak; therefore that's who they now are. A stroke victim. That's causative, a plainly obvious open and shut case. Recently however, heretics have found that if you give stroke victims 3 hours physical therapy every day (no more, no less), other parts of the brain learn to rewire thus enabling the reestablishment of control over these functions. Wow!

The problem with addiction is that it can't be measured and no one can show where in the body addiction can be found with measuring equipment. How then do you propose to cure it? The only way is to unlearn this behaviour. You'd have to give up such orthodoxies as believing it's an illness; it's genetic; it's incurable; it's beyond your control; it even exists. 3 hours a day? Oh, and realising that you're also addicted to positive feedback from well-meaning but dangerous opinion such as 'He/she can't help it'. You're truly damned then.

Boycotting Israel. The reportage of the Paris atrocities has shocked everyone. Do we think Israeli victims of increasing Muslim terrorist attacks unconnected? Why the virtual silence over the terrorist killings of Jews by Muslims in Israel every day? Israel is more of a friend to democracy than any Arab nation. Will we not show our solidarity to her?

I think the BBC should be applauded for inviting you on this programme to give an intelligent and coherent response to balance the excitable rhetoric coming from many of our politicians. You gave a very good performance and even Yasmin agreed with you on many of the issues (which must be a first for her). I thought you were going to cry with delight when that guest on the second topic agreed with you totally on the danger of cannabis, you seemed genuinely touched. Although I agree with your comments concerning cultural boycotts, I do feel you rarely comment negatively on Israeli military excesses and their illegal occupation of Palestine land, maybe your pro Zionist beliefs will not allow this. You make so many appearances on BBC, I think a full time job might be in the offing, I hope so!

Addiction
I'm amazed, I have to say. To know better than the medical profession, now, and the neuroscientists.

Are there any experts can't be second-guessed?

I'm told (although this is hearsay, or is it testimony?) that Mr. Hitchens has decided to believe in God, without the aid of twenty five centuries of theology for and against. (I'm not sure that can be right, although he does dispose of three "arguments" against theism in a brisk 13 pages in his book.)

A pity that more time could not be given to the 'addiction discussion'. I noted the man who claim to have an 'addictive personality' deducing from the existence of previous 'addicts' (and their fate) amongst family members that this proved some kind of genetic link, like say with heart disease. However what might be more important is how those 'addictions' were treated, and possibly indulgently excused, within the family.

My brother died of health complications from alcohol abuse. As he lived away from family he, in addition to lying about his dependence (On the phone: "Are you off the drink? "Oh yeah" he would say in a slurred voice), was not subject to regular face-to-face criticism of his behaviour by family. He latterly associated with other 'addicts' (almost exclusively, in social terms, though not at work - however the workplace had a persistent drinking culture - any major life event, birth, marriage, divorce, just employed, just leaving, would provoke a booze-up). But what was most significant about him was his reading list including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dylan Thomas, Jeffery Bernard, Kingsley Amis and others, all of whom provided support to the idea that excessive drinking was normal, emotionally healthy and in some ways an answer to the small-minds and puritans, who only wished to prevent him being happy.

This cultural reinforcement weighed more heavily than a six-week stay in a sanatorium, family criticism, the obvious health effects, which at the last involved gangrenous feet and the DTs, followed by heart failure. There was a refusal to face facts, caused by what? - a terrible fear of life without drink? He was dead at 49, having been warned by his doctor he would be dead within a year if he didn't stop drinking. When I met him some 8 months before he died he turned this into a joke

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